


the empty shadow of memory

by darthpumpkinspice



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Introspection, M/M, Unreliable Narrator, ambiguous character, not a specific character but the wrath in general
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 15:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15145682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthpumpkinspice/pseuds/darthpumpkinspice
Summary: In the end, the Wrath cannot even remember what was real, or which stories were true.





	the empty shadow of memory

**Author's Note:**

> So like it says, this isn't based on a specific character or anything. This is more just trying to mesh all of the possibilities of the sith warrior storyline into one, and playing around with how incoherent and weird that would be. just a fun exercise, but i hope you enjoy!

Looking back you find you are not sure what was real. Your memories prove lacking- you plumb the depths of your mind only to find them hollow and fuzzy around the edges, as if they barely belong to you.

There are stories of you that are beginning to take on a certain mythology: they become more grandiose with each telling, and soon they will ripen into legends.

They do not prove particularly helpful. They are too inconsistent: in some tales you are a monster, a vicious executioner for your Lord Emperor. In others, you are a noble warrior, as honorable as you are fierce. In some, you are a reformer, working to bring a bright new vision to the Sith. In some stories you kill your enemies, in others you convert them to your cause. Merciful or savage, golden-eyed tyrant or heroic protector: you are all of these things. You wish you knew where the truth lay beneath all the fabrications.

There is one common thread that binds all of these stories together: they all call you the Emperor’s Wrath. You have had a dozen titles, but the Wrath is the one that has always remained consistent since you received it. It is your identity, your purpose, and it has swallowed up the whole of your being into it. You have been subsumed by it, and it is more familiar to you then your own name.

In truth, you don’t even remember your name. It has been many decades since it graced another being’s lips, you cannot even recall the sound of it. You think your wife said it, once, on your wedding day. You remember her- the beauty of her painted face, and how her lekku would twitch in excitement whenever you smiled at her. You remember the lushness of her lips, and the musical timbre of her voice, but you do not remember how your name sounded upon them.

You try to force yourself to remember more.

You have lived a long life. Some would say a great life, full of glorious victories and triumphs. But it was not a good life, not a life of simple comforts and companionship. You were not destined for children and a place of your own, and you cannot say for sure whether you ever wanted those things at all. This is a hollow sort of sadness you feel now, reflecting on the things you lost that you may never have even desired- your heart feels both infinitely heavy and impossibly empty.

You think back further, to the beginning of your story. You were the scion of a powerful Sith bloodline- the rising star in a family that could trace its roots all the way to the Sith survivors of the Hyperspace wars. You remember, abstractly, the victories of your progenitors: the names of the worlds conquered, the warlords defeated, the Jedi slain. But you don’t remember the faces of your parents, or what their love felt like. You don’t remember if their eyes ever shone with pride when they looked at you- in truth, you don’t remember their eyes at all. Baras might as well have plucked you from your mother’s womb, he was the closest thing to a father you remember having. And you, like all reliable sons, eventually supplanted him. The memory of his defeat is still sharp, and the taste of it is sweet in your mouth.

You were the Wrath at that point, and everything before that is just prelude. Whoever the man was who called himself by the name his parents gave him is long dead- you are what is left.

So to you, this is how your life began: not in a cradle, not pushed out of a mother into the arms of a father, but in Tremel’s dark office that sang of ancient mysteries and dangerous secrets, with the Overseer’s gaze fixated upon you like a hawk- poised to devour you. You remember he did not make it out of your story alive, and you wonder if he suspected then how fast your ascension would be. He set your journey into motion, but he could not account for your progress or how quickly you would surpass his teachings and his control.

You remember many triumphs distantly- they have all been warped and exaggerated by the stories. In one you stole a fleet of alien ships and conquered a remote empire- but that was not how it happened. There was a kingdom hidden away in the stars of wild space, and you did make war with them- but you did not fall upon them like a plague, and you did not become their Emperor. You remember their youthful, vengeful Emperor: you remember the tidal swell of his power and how he had surged upon you like a dark wave, consuming your mouth in a kiss as he moaned your title. _Wrath_.

It all feels like a fever dream- half-remembered delusions mixed with the shadows of memory. You cannot say what is real or not: the Wrath is real, but he has long outgrown you. You are just a man, flesh and blood and bone and sinew. The Wrath is a legend, a god, a myth. What you are, your memories- do they even matter? The softer moments you shared with your wife and your lovers, these have all been washed away by time.

In the end, this is the cost of your greatness. For all of your might, all of your ill-begotten power, what you are left with is only the echoes of memory, and inconsistent stories. Your deeds immortalized, your name lost to the ashes of history. You remember Tremel’s office, and how filled you were with ambition and restless energy- you wanted to carve your name into the galaxy. But now, you cannot even remember why.


End file.
